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Seattle’s sustainable brewer, Fremont Brewing, is making a big splash. Amidst increasing exposure and growing popularity, Fremont Brewing is finally rolling out a canning line. Even more exciting (to us) is that Fremont has begun the process of producing sour beer, right here in Washington state.

Both of these items were disclosed by way of a blog post today at the brewery’s website. The blog post states that the brewery acquired a used canning system that will allow them to put beer in a can at impressive rates.

From the post:

The used caning line Matt scored for us arrived yesterday! It’s a manual system capable of canning 20 cases an hour. Now we just have to buy some cans (minimum order: 85,000) and soon you’ll see us in grocery stores — and elsewhere…

When the first announcements of Fremont’s launching were released, the press release promised canning – now they have fulfilled that lofty goal. Congrats Fremont, we cannot wait to crack a beer.

More interesting to many of us at BeerBlotter.com was the claim that Fremont began barreling its Universale Pale Ale in Cabernet barrels this week. That beer will be fermented using wild yeasts to create sour ale. Yum.

Washington brewers and sour ale have not historically joined forces. Minuscule batches of sour ales have been brewed in the past for super-limited releases from Elysian Brewing and Big Al Brewing, but nothing consistently produced and available to the public.

Fremont’s sour ale endeavor involves using a pale ale, aged in cabernet sauvignon barrels. The concoction may closely resemble that used to create Russian River Brewing’s Consecration (though no fruit was mentioned).

Lets just hope that Fremont sticks with this trend. Sour beer is a great seller and something that can raise a brewer’s profile considerably.

Hey, maybe they will even entertain the idea of canning their new sour creation? Its highly doubtful, but its been done – just ask Rodenbach, who’s Grand Cru can be found in cans throughout Belgium.

We cannot wait to try both of the new products from one of Washington’s finest.